“What can’t you stop coming?” Tea whispered furiously. What form did his whaiwhaiā take? Of course, he would be some strong animal. A stallion, maybe, or a lion. Perhaps a bear. Or moa, brought back from extinction?
“Izz, I’m sorry.” The flickering from his hand manifested in his face. Flesh struggled against flesh.
“Shh, we’re here to help,” Izzy said. “How far to your battalion, do you think?”
“Half a mile, maybe. A bit more. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t walk. And it’s coming, Izz. Any moment now. And the boys will see, and then … I’ll really be dead. Shot on sight. If not, court martial. Jail. Mental asylum.”
“Do you think you could make it stop if Grant was here?”
“What are you on about?” Tea sunk her fingers into Izzy’s ruff. Izzy snapped her teeth; just a warning.
“I swear to God, if Grant is here, I’ll—”
“Tea, put pressure on that wound,” Izzy ordered, voice disguised by a low growl. When Robbie shook his head, she added. “It’s alright, Robbie. She’s fire, too.”
“Wha—”
“How you think we got here, you silly chook?” Tea grimaced. She tore off the hem of her robe and pressed it into the seeping wound. Robbie didn’t even flinch at the pain. The flickering around his neck slowed.
“I’ll be right back.” Izzy melted into the gloaming, leaving behind her a warm scent that made Tea realise she was desperately hungry. It must be well past dinner time back home.
With his spare hand, Robbie positioned her in such a way that her body shielded him from the glare of the silent man in the corner. He hadn’t moved in all this time, but his stillness spoke of a quick deadliness, a wrath Tea did not want to incur.
All at once, Robbie’s face fell into repose. The pain and anguish didn’t disappear, but the lines and angles changed in a subtle way. The L of his jaw softened, the folds of his eyes loosened, and his lips bruised up a little, like those nights he’d come home having been in a fight.
“Whaiwhaiā,” he whispered.
He wasn’t an animal. He was another person.
Tea glance-checked. Trip had turned his back and was conferring with Anderson. They both stared off into the dark, ignoring the man in the corner. “What … who are you?”
“You’re not surprised,” Robbie said.
“I’ve seen too much in the last few months to be surprised by much, but this is getting up there.” Tea smiled to soften her whispered words. “You can change. How … how long?”
A stutter of bullets. Everyone flinched, except Corner Man.
“Since I was fifteen, before I went shearing,” Robbie whispered, breathy, high-pitched from fright. “But the feeling, the tearing of it, has always been just below my skin.”
She touch-checked his face, shoulder, hands – his tremor was a little less – and her brother smiled back. “You’re not angry?”
In reply, Tea held up her hand. Pulling on the energy of blood, sweat, the cold air, she ran a ripple of scales down her flesh, webbed her fingers, lifted a soft fin up from her elbow. “Scared as heck, maybe. But not angry. You want to tell me what’s going on with you?”
“N-not here. But I—” He winced at the pain, his own words. “I want to be, need to be … both people.”
“Both who?” Fear warred with jealousy. Robbie had had so much more time to think about it all.
A chatter of voices. Tea didn’t understand German, but the harsh, spitting syllables felt like a curved knife slashing the desert air. Everyone tensed, except the silent man. Tea held her breath until she started to see stars against the stars. Her heart beat so loud, she thought it alone would give them away.
After what seemed like a lifetime, the voices moved away. The shared pain in Tea’s arm had spread into her chest, and she almost vomited spit when she breathed out.
“That was too close,” Anderson growled, leaping from his crouch to stalk a straight line, back and forth, gun down, not coming too close. “We move now, or we don’t move at all.”
“Wait!” Tea plead, keeping herself between Robbie and them. “My friend will be back with help any moment!”
“This is a goddamn battlefield, girlie!” Trip growled. “There’s no help coming! We’re on our own. Oh my God. I’m arguing with a near-naked darkie girl. I’m dead already. I am. And this is hell. We’re going, whether you’re coming or not.”
“A few minutes more, that’s all we need, Tripplet.” Robbie coughed. “We haven’t been spotted yet. That’s an order.”
“If a goddamn girlie and her dog can find us—”
“That’s an order.”
“Yessir.” He snapped an insolent salute.
Tea cast about for Izzy’s water song. Nothing. She was either too far away or very good at masking her scent.
The German voices were still in range. The near-sunrise air wafted their stink to her – crimson iron, grease, hot flesh. She grabbed Robbie’s too-cold hands, suddenly too tired for words. The flickering translated into little sparks of lightning in her skin.
Hurry up, Izzy. Please.
A clop-chuff and pant-cough. A wet nose pushed into Tea’s elbow, and the long sandy-grey head of a donkey swung around the broken wall.
Robbie gasped and flung his free arm around the donkey’s neck. “I thought you were bloody joking when you said Grant was here.”
Robbie clung to Grant as if his life depended on it. A whole new bunch of questions crowded into Tea’s head.
No time for any of them.
“Great,” Trip drawled. “Now there’s a donkey. Will Noah row up with a boat to save us, too?”
“This donkey is going to get Robbie to safety,” Tea snapped. Did he not want to survive this war? “It’ll be a far sight faster than trying to walk him out. You coming?”
Trip threw up his hands. “Why not. It’s all madness anyway.”
Robbie muffled his groan as Tea helped him climb onto Grant’s back. For a small, skinny man, Grant made a sturdy pack animal.
The sharp lines of Robbie’s jaw and chest had returned. That’s some powerful touch Grant’s got, Tea marvelled. More powerful than me.
Fear, wonder, jealousy. A war within a war.
Robbie sat as dignified as he could, shaking and wounded atop a donkey. His bullet wound seeped at an alarming rate. “Brixt, take point as we head left around the dune.”